There is gonna be a Rocky spin-off, it seems, but Sylvester Stallone is anything but happy about it.
Hollywood is out of ideas! And even though that is nothing new, Sylvester Stallone seems to be done with producers exploiting the Rocky franchise.
For the last few years, Hollywood has been recycling franchises like Ghostbusters, Matrix, Lord of the Rings or Star Wars in order to gain a shit ton of money with little to no risk. It seems like for the first time now, an actor speaks up against greedy producers.
After Sylvester Stallone heard about the Drago spin-off, he went on a rant on Instagram, calling out Dolph Lundgren and Irwin Winkler in particular:
Heartbreaker… Just found this out… ONCE AGAIN, IRWIN WINKLER , this PATHETIC 94 year old PRODUCER and HIS MORONIC VULTURE CHILDREN, Charles And David , are once again picking clean THE BONES of another wonderful character I created without even telling me,” he said. “I APOLOGIZE to the FANS , I never wanted ROCKY characters to be exploited by these parasites… By the way, I once had nothing but respect for Dolph but he NEVER told me about what was going on behind my back with the character I created for him !!! REAL FRIENDS Are more precious than gold.
He goes so far, as to call the producers parasites that suck dry his work. Stallone seems especially disappointed in Dolph Lundgren's involvement, as he considered him a friend that now has betrayed his trust.
I really respect him for calling out this behavior and apologizing to the fans. I, for one, hate watching bad remakes, spin-offs etc. of movies that once were dear to me, so his words are highly appreciated.
In Drago, Dolph Lundgren, as Ivan Drago, will be training his son Viktor Drago. So it's pretty much Creed, but in Russia.
Stallone's biggest problem with the spin-off seems to be Winkler stealing and profiting off of his intellectual property. Exploiting his ideas for far longer, than he deemed tolerable.
Throughout history so many artists in every industry, recording, painting, writing, you name it have been destroyed by these blood suckers who have destroyed so many families, lining their pockets with other people work. #parasite producers #exploited artists victims.
He has always been very adamant to get back the rights to the series he created, but has been without success so far.
As it stands, it seems things between him and Lundgren might already be resolved. The latter made a statement on Instagram, claiming he didn't know about Stallone not being involved in the movie. Lundgren also tried to dissolve the situation by stating, that the project was still in its early stages and there wasn't even a script yet. It seems he is in touch with Sylvester Stallone to smooth things over, but wasn't able to inform him beforehand, as everything got public due to a leak before anything was certain.
To me, it seems like he was planning to participate in Drago anyway and just didn't want Stallone to find out so early, but I guess that's none of my business. Well, actually it is, as I am writing about it. But in the end, we will have to see if Stallone's objections will be able to change anything and if he might even get back the rights for the series.